Tom Soltesz

Tom Soltesz travels, paints and exhibits in many places, but he always returns to painting his own neighborhood, the beautiful coast of Marin County.

His life as an artist took shape in 1974 when Soltesz moved to Denver and enrolled in the Colorado Institute of Art. In 1976 he moved to the South Pacific to start a graphic design studio in Manila. His graphic design career took him to Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. He returned to the United States in 1982 to continue his education and freelanced his way through the Academy of Art College in San Francisco where he majored in illustration and fine art. After four years of advanced classes at the Academy, he did commercial illustration for a number of years. In the early 90s he discovered the early California landscape artists that changed his way of painting. J. Thomas Soltesz is an Artist Member of the California Art Club and has won numerous awards in plein air competitions in Carmel and San Luis Obispo. He is currently represented by five art galleries in California. He is collected by corporations and individuals in the U.S. and abroad. He is also listed in the Library of Congress as a living legend of California.